President Kerry Kilcannon and his fiancie, television journalist Lara Costello, have at last decided to marry. But their wedding is followed by a massacre of innocents in a lethal burst of gunfire, challenging their marriage and his presidency in ways so shattering and indelibly personal that Kilcannon vows to eradicate gun violence and crush the most powerful lobby in Washington - the Sons of the Second Amendment (SSA).

People who bought this also bought...

Protect and Defend: A Novel

In Washington, a newly elected young president faces a test that will focus the national spotlight on abortion, parental consent, backroom politics, and the battle over one woman's nomination as chief justice of the Supreme Court. It's high-stakes drama as only Richard North Patterson can present it! Browse more Patterson.

No Safe Place

When it comes to presidential campaigns, fiction can be more thrilling than truth. Such is the case in the extraordinary story of high-stakes presidential politics told in Richard North Patterson's No Safe Place. Browse more Patterson.

Silent Witness

When seventeen-year-old Tony Lord was accused of the murder of Alison Taylor, his friends turned against him. Now he is a San Francisco lawyer dedicated to the defense of his clients, but his new client is one of those fair-weather friends...and he is suspected of murdering of a female student. Tony must confront not only the fear that his friend is a murderer, but the buried truths that underlie Alison's death so long ago.

Degree of Guilt

Christopher Paget is a trial lawyer with a famous past. As a young investigator he brought down a president. It cost him his relationship with Mary Carelli. Fifteen years have passed while Paget raises their son, seeking privacy. Until a murder changes everything.

Conviction

Fifty-nine days. That's how long Rennell Price has to live after spending 15 years on death row for the horrifying sexual assault and murder of a girl whose body was found floating in San Francisco Bay. But attorney Terri Paget has dedicated her life to fighting for people like Rennell Price. This time, Terri has a client she believes may actually be innocent, which means that an unpunished killer may still be free.

Fall from Grace: A Novel

The mysterious, violent death of a prominent New England patriarch exposes a nest of dark family secrets in bestselling author Richard North Patterson’s twentieth compelling novel. Adam Blaine arrives on the island of Martha’s Vineyard to attend the funeral of his estranged father, Ben Blaine, a famous and charismatic writer who has served as patriarch of his clan for many years.

Loss of Innocence

America is in a state of turbulence, engulfed in civil unrest and uncertainty. Yet for Whitney Dane - spending the summer of her twenty-second year on Martha's Vineyard - life could not be safer, nor the future more certain.

The Race

Corey Grace, a handsome and charismatic Republican senator from Ohio, is locked in a fierce presidential primary battle with the favorite of the party establishment and an influential Christian leader. A decorated Gulf War Air Force pilot known for speaking his mind, Grace's reputation for voting his own conscience rather than the party line - together with his growing romance with an African-American movie star - has earned him a reputation as a maverick and an iconoclast.

Exile

David Wolfe's life is approaching an exhilarating peak: a successful San Francisco lawyer, he's about to get married and has been primed for a run for Congress. But when the phone rings and he hears the voice of Hana Arif, the Palestinian woman with whom he had a passionate affair in law school, he begins a completely unexpected journey. The day after Hana's call, the prime minister of Israel is assassinated by a suicide bomber - and soon Hana is accused of being the mastermind behind the murder.

Eden in Winter: The Blaine Trilogy, Book 3

Two months after the suspicious and much-publicized death of his father on the island of Martha's Vineyard, it is taking all of Adam Blaine's will to suture the deep wounds the tragedy has inflicted upon his family and himself. As the court inquest into Benjamin Blaine's death casts suspicions on those closest to him, Adam struggles to protect them from those who still suspect that his father was murdered by one of his kin.

Exile

David Wolfe is an ambitious former homicide prosecutor who is planning to run for Congress. A political dinner for the Israeli Prime Minister is hosted by his current girlfriend, Carole Shorr, a liberal supporter of both the Palestinian and Israeli causes. But when David receives a call from Hana Ashawi, a Palestinian woman who was David's classmate at Harvard Law School, he is rattled. Hana was more than a peer - she was his lover.

Dark Lady

In Dark Lady, Richard North Patterson displays the mastery of setting, psychology, and story that makes him unique among writers of suspense, and one of today's most original and enthralling novelists.

The Spire

Mark Darrow grew up in a small Ohio town with no real advantages beyond his intelligence and athletic ability. But thanks to the intervention of Lionel Farr - a professor at Caldwell, the local college - Darrow became an excellent student and, later, a superb trial lawyer. Now Farr asks his still-youthful protégé for a life-altering favor. An embezzlement scandal has threatened Caldwell's very existence - would Darrow consider becoming its new president?

The Devil's Light

The Devil's Light tells the story of an al-Qaida operative named Amer al-Zaroor, who, on orders from Osama bin Laden, directs the theft of a nuclear weapon from the Pakistani military, and then transports it toward its intended target, Israel. Meanwhile, bin Laden announces to the world that he will make a major terrorist strike on the tenth anniversary of 9/11....

Eclipse

The spellbinding story of an American lawyer who takes on a nearly impossible case - the defense of an African freedom fighter against his corrupt government's charge of murder. Damon Pierce's life has just reached a defining moment: a gifted California lawyer, he's being divorced by his wife and his work often seems soulless. Then he receives a frantic e-mail from Marissa Brand Okari - a woman he loved years ago - and decides to risk everything to respond to her plea for help.

Hard Evidence: A Dismas Hardy Novel

When the bullet-ridden body of a Silicon Valley billionaire washes up on shore, assistant D.A. Dismas Hardy finds himself the prosecutor in San Francisco's murder trial of the century. The suspect: a Japanese call girl with a long list of prominent clients. But when a bizarre series of events blows the case wide open, Hardy finds himself on the other side of the law - as a lawyer for the defense.

The Mercy Rule: Dismas Hardy, Book 5

The Mercy Rule is a brilliant and moving human drama set against a backdrop of relentless suspense, legal complexity and moral ambiguity. Dismas Hardy, the former bartender, loving husband and father, and reluctant defense attorney of The 13th Juror, returns here in his most challenging case.

Publisher's Summary

President Kerry Kilcannon and his fiancie, television journalist Lara Costello, have at last decided to marry. But their wedding is followed by a massacre of innocents in a lethal burst of gunfire, challenging their marriage and his presidency in ways so shattering and indelibly personal that Kilcannon vows to eradicate gun violence and crush the most powerful lobby in Washington - the Sons of the Second Amendment (SSA).

Allied with the President's most determined rival, the resourceful and relentless Senate Majority Leader Frank Fasano, the SSA declares all-out war on Kerry Kilcannon, deploying its arsenal of money, intimidation and secret dealings to eviscerate Kilcannon's crusade and, it hopes, destroy his presidency. This ignites a high-stakes game of politics and legal maneuvering in the Senate, the courtroom, and across the country, which the charismatic but untested young President is determined to win at any cost. But in the incendiary clash over gun violence and gun rights, the cost to both Kilcannons may be even higher than he imagined.

And others in the crossfire may also pay the price: the idealistic lawyer who has taken on the gun industry; the embattled CEO of America's leading gun maker; the war-hero senator caught between conflicting ambitions; the female senator whose career is at risk; and the grief-stricken young woman fighting to emerge from the shadow of her sister, the First Lady.

The insidious ways money corrodes democracy and corrupts elected officials...the visceral debate between gun-rights and gun-control advocates...the bitter legal conflict between gun companies and the victims of gun violence...a ratings-driven media that both manipulates and is manipulated...Richard North Patterson weaves these engrossing themes into an epic novel that moves us with its force, passion and authority.

I have listened to Richard North Patterson's other Kerry Kilcannon books and enjoyed them. I can't bring myself to listen to even the first half of this one. Really, I don't have high standards but a) his themes borrow SO heavily from his previous books that it is boring; and b)it also seems MUCH more melodramatic; --it may be the reader; I find her very annoying. Lastly, if you haven't read this series before; start with the earlier ones; at the beginning of this one he gives away the endings of the others.

I should have listened . . . Because I have enjoyed previous books by this author, I purchased it even though the reviews weren't overly positive. I should have listened to them! This book is not up to the author's usual standards. It's boring -- skip this one!

I have enjoyed other books by this author, but this one is intolerable. It drones on and on, never seems to end, and never gets very entertaining or exciting. I finally gave up on it. This is the first time I have ever done so with an Audible book!

Balance is what this novel lacked. All the action occurs early on and then everything slows to a tedious pace. This is a entirely predictible book and is filled with tedious chapters that can't hold your interest. Everyone seems to be a cariacture and I just didn't care what happened to any of them. This seemed to be less of a novel and instead a non-fiction work dealing with the issue of gun control and politics.

When one picks up a political novel, one expects to get a certain bias from the author. In "Balance of Power" however, the author uses his forum as a battle ground and proceeds to bludgeon the reader/listener with endless verbiage about why guns are wrong and abortion is all right. Regardless of ones stand on either of these issues, no one deserves this treatment. To make the whole thing even worse, the author's characters are so poorly fleshed out and the politics so raw and ugly, I found myself not caring a bit about what happened to any of them. Don't waste your money or your subscription on this trash.

The reader only had one note. Made it hard to keep up with who was who. The story also, while something I thought I ought to understand better, was way too long for my feeble brain. This is one I should have considered in the Abridged form.
The whole presentation became more of a text book than a story and I don't think all the blame can be put on the reader. It was about as riveting as .....uh.....Aw shucks I am even bored writing a review on it.

The actor reading this book puts me to sleep. I have always enjoyed reading the books by this author. However, I have trouble staying awake when I listren to this recording since it is read in a monotone with little or no inflection. The book was ruined!!!

Maybe it's because I'm a gun owner who has been to a gun show or two. Maybe it's because I don't share the views of the author. But I just can't find much nice to say about this book. The one thing I could come up with is to say that the workings of congress described in the book were intriguing. A political hatchet job laced with stereotypes but intriguing. People on the left will probably love this book. Those on the right will probably hate it. I would not buy this book if I had to do it over again.

The book started fine but I could only take the first 6 hours (of 22) before I gave it up. The whole storyline(?) appears to be nothing more than a continuous monotonous rant about gun control. If I want that I can just listen to any liberal politician during the election year. I'm from a western state where the definition of "gun control" is being able to hit what you're shooting at. I'm sorry I wasted a credit to get the book. I'm very happy that I didn't pay the listed price for it.

Your report has been received. It will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.

Can't wait to hear more from this listener?

You can now follow your favorite reviewers on Audible.

When you follow another listener, we'll highlight the books they review, and even email* you a copy of any new reviews they write. You can un-follow a listener at any time to stop receiving their updates.

* If you already opted out of emails from Audible you will still get review emails by the listeners you follow.